Hey, there! Log in / Register
Suffolk students, creepy older pick-up guy get two bars hauled before board
By adamg on Tue, 02/28/2017 - 12:39pm
A pair of 18-year-old Suffolk University students with fake Canadian IDs managed to procure a couple of vodka drinks at Bijou on Stuart Street shortly before several Boston police officers walked in for an unscheduled inspection on Nov. 10.
At a Boston Licensing Board hearing this morning, club owner George Aboujaoude said he and other bar owners in the city are facing an escalating battle with fake ID makers, who advertise their wares online and whose products "continue to get better and better."
Sgt. William Gallagher told the board that the pair knew their night was over when they saw the cops enter the club. He said they tried to walk away from the officers to no avail.
Separately, Coogan's Bluff on Milk Street downtown had to explain a Jan. 24 incident in which a man claimed bouncers beat him up, then pushed him into the path of a car driving down Milk Street.
Except Coogan's Bluff manager Sheldon Cohen said that didn't happen. And a BPD sergeant said the man had no evidence of having just been in a fight, let alone hit by a moving car.
Cohen told the board that what happened was that the guy was at the bar and started chatting up a couple of women whom he estimated were 30 years younger. The woman complained to a bar staffer about the "creepy" guy. The staffer went up to the man and told him he could stay if he left the women alone.
Cohen said it worked at first, but then when the women got up and started walking, the guy began "yelling obscenities" at them and loudly questioning their sexual orientation. At that point, bar staffers escorted the guy outside and then watched him go away, he said.
Cohen said there was no fighting, no punching, nobody getting hit by a car.
The board decides Thursday whether either of the bars had any fault for the incidents and, if so, what to do about them.
Ad:
Support Universal Hub
Help keep Universal Hub going. If you like what we're up to and want to help out, please consider a (completely non-deductible) contribution.
Comments
Clubbing was fun in Boston
Clubbing was fun in Boston back in the day. Everyone was in a better mood and laughed everything off. My girlfriends and I wouldn't go complain to the staff about some drunken pervert harrassing us or trying to pick us up, we would just embarrass the shit out of him and laugh. We were never afraid of getting stabbed, bopped on the head with a champagne bottle, shot in the parking garage, etc. We'd go to Lipstick, the Metro on Landsdowne, the 1270, Venus DeMilo, The Edge, with no problem. Yeah, I know violent club nights existed back then in Boston too, but you just didn't read about it as much as you do now. Laws were more laid back. There was no social media. I guess everyone was just too coked up that they were paralyzed and couldn't do anything. LOL. God, was that fun!
Cool story, bro.
Cool story, bro.
You're usually on your game, Scratchie
Did the facetious nature of this post elude you?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poes_law
That's what Poe's law is?
I thought it was "have a good Southern food restaurant in the South End that you inexplicably replace with an $18 plate of fried shrimp and fries with an awful name before going out of business entirely."
do you remember FSU?
they were fun.
I do
They had that Muslim girl who did porn.
FSU
FSU did not stand for Florida State University and what would that have to do with Boston clubs? It stood for F*** S*** Up and that they did.
The law is pretty clear on
The law is pretty clear on the first one: the bar owner is held harmless if the patron presented a facially valid MA ID, *not* if that ID is from anywhere else. I've never liked that provision of the law--I think it should apply to any government ID, there are books published of what various IDs look like--but that's the law.
Sounds like the second bar did the right things, unless you want to argue that Mr. Creepy Old Dude should have been ejected after the first complaint.
Yes, bar is held harmless with certain IDs
Massachusetts-issued ones, US passports and military IDs.
But that doesn't mean Bijou will get any sort of punishment. The board does consider things such as how seriously a club takes the issue and how sneaky the kiddies were. Then again, it's not like Bijou is not already in hot water over underage drinking.
http://www.mass.gov/abcc/pdf
http://www.mass.gov/abcc/pdf/idlawchange_with_id_pix.pdf
Other passports are valid, too. I moved here in 1994 and that was brought up as a problem for people in town for the World Cup. Odd that Green Cards aren't on the list. If you don't drive, you would only need your Green Card on you and it seems strange that would be less valid than a Jamaican passport.
I seem to remember that some clubs claimed that list contained the only IDs they could accept. They wouldn't accept out-of-state ID, no matter how legit. Another of those weird things about Mass. and alcohol.
Cohen said it worked at first
They should be giving them a frickin medal, if anything.
Bijuo should be shuttered anyway
Overly pretentious crowd and lame bouncers that make you stand outside in the cold even when the club is still empty. I've never seen a place that tried to control the 'look' of it's crowd as much as this place does.
Should be shuttered?
Well who, pray tell, do you think should have the privilege of deciding that?
Well
Scauma doesn't like it, so therefore, it should be closed.
Yeah, that works for me.
Glad you've realized my way is the best way. Can you inform my girlfriend of that too please?
Boston Latin School
Remember when you said BLS should be shut down? You happily voice opinions on what should be opened and closed all the time.
Yeah
Except I'm not the government.
Are you ever going to become good at this? Are you really trying to draw an analogy between a private business which sells alcohol and a public school?
Patrons
I'm convinced if there were other options Bijuo wouldn't be nearly pretentious as it is now.
You know after all that the guy
was still happy Trump won...
Creepy guy
I don't understand - what is wrong with talking to fellow patrons. Oh, this is Boston, I forgot we can't meet new people.
Hey, what's the matter? I'm
Hey, what's the matter? I'm just being friendly! Geez, would it kill you to smile?
Clearly you're not a young
Clearly you're not a young woman who has been the target of the unwelcome attention of a creep old enough to be your father who just will not take the freaking hint and leave you alone, even when you explicitly say the words "please leave me alone."
Decent guys will take the hint and stop talking to me after I make it clear I'm not interested in talking to them. Creeps will yell at me, harass me, or mock me for having the audacity to want to be left alone while I'm eating dinner or having a drink. If that makes me a bitch then so be it.
This is 2017
Celine Dion & Melania Trump was/is married to a man 25 years older. Get with the times.
There's nothing wrong with talking to fellow patrons
There is, of course, nothing wrong with talking to fellow patrons. In fact, Saturday night I was sitting in a bar having a lovely conversation with a woman my daughter's age who happened to sit next to us. My wife was with me; all three of us enjoyed ourselves.
There is, on the other hand, plenty wrong with harassing your fellow patrons. Had I been alone, relentlessly and crudely hitting on this young woman, and had I refused to take 'no' for an answer, it would have been an entirely different story.
You forgot
Loudly speculating about how they must be of a certain sexual orientation if they rejected your superlative self.
As for chatting, that's entirely doable in Boston area bars. The after work bar scene at Redbone's is predominantly middle aged cyclists, most married, kvetching about beer and this or that and whatever. I have no problem waiting for my family there and finding some good conversation.
One night at the new taproom at Night Shift, I was flying solo but ended up chatting and playing a board game with a group of folks who hadn't heard that Idle Hands had reopened not far away. I led their cyclists to the new location, met up with their motorists, and they bought me a beer in exchange for the scouting tip.
Sgt. William Gallagher told
Apparently these two college students don't have much of an education.
If a cop walks up to you in public, you say nothing other than "Am I free to go?" and/or "Am I being detained?" If the answer is yes you're free to go, you walk away. If not, you say nothing further unless you're under arrest, in which case you say nothing but that you want a lawyer.
You do not have to show a cop an ID in Massachusetts, unless it is a traffic stop and you are the driver of the vehicle. You do not even have to verbally give them your name or any other information. Massachusetts has no "stop-and-identify" law [cite].
Suffolk Students and Fake IDs
I'm betting that it is part of their culture. If they could find the Fake ID mill and shut it down, they would get further than harassing individuals and bars.
I got trapped out from my office during the Patriot's Parade after an off site meeting. My coworker and I found a wallet.
I searched the wallet for a phone number, and found both a MA driver's license and a fake PA driver's license stating that the person was born in 1995 instead of 1997.
Of course I called the local number, got the dad, and he called the kid to call me back.
The PA driver's license lacked a number of features that pegged it as a fake. However, these kids are getting these made somewhere. Perhaps some more energy should be put into finding that out.
Jurisdiction issues
It's a million small shops, not any one that you could hunt down. And once you do track one down, chances are it's in Kyrgyzstan or Burkina Faso
Reminds me of a friend
In high school who had a fake VA ID that said he lived on Blue Hill Ave, and it worked! Granted this was the 90's.